This multi-phased learning package progresses from guided engineering to an open mission-design challenge. Each step is scaffolded and includes easy-to-implement teaching tools, lessons and art activities. Learners, working in collaborative teams,...(View More) build an O-Rex spacecraft model. The building process incorporates inventing, designing and engineering- leading to a deeper understanding of NASA mission work. A leader guide, instructions, templates and a YouTube video are included and accessed through the Related & Supplemental Resources.(View Less)

Explore lunar phases as viewed from Earth using a golf ball and an ultraviolet light. With the student's head representing Earth, students hold and move the golf ball to demonstrate the cause of the Moon's phases in their correct order. Related Next...(View More) Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are listed.(View Less)

Using stickers created from the templates provided, students create a Venn diagram of objects in our solar system, our galaxy and the universe. This short activity can be used as a formative assessment.

This is an online lesson associated with activities during Solar Week, a twice-yearly event in March and October during which classrooms are able to interact with scientists studying the Sun. Outside of Solar Week, information, activities, and...(View More) resources are archived and available online at any time. This is an activity about measurements of solar activity. Learners will observe an image of the Sun and sketch major features, plot data to begin to recognize patterns of solar activity, look for long-term patterns in graphed data, compare X-ray and visible light images of the Sun to find solar features common to both sets of images, and make a prediction of what the Sun will look like in a visible light image after observing an X-ray image taken on the same day. This activity is scheduled to occur during Monday of Solar Week.(View Less)

This is an activity associated with activities during Solar Week, a twice-yearly event in March and October during which classrooms are able to interact with scientists studying the Sun. Outside of Solar Week, information, activities, and resources...(View More) are archived and available online at any time. Learners will use SOHO spacecraft images of a coronal mass ejection and tracing paper to measure and then calculate the speed of the coronal mass ejection. This activity is scheduled to occur during Wednesday of Solar Week.(View Less)

Become a crime scene investigator! Learners model Dawn Mission scientists, engineers, and technologists and how they use instrumentation to detect distant worlds. After a briefing to build context, students explore interactions between different...(View More) frequencies/wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum and matter as they investigate the different ways scientists gather and understand remote sensing data, using Dawn instruments as examples. This module is organized around a learning cycle, engaging students through several experiences to activate students' prior knowledge and assess conceptual understanding, informing next steps.(View Less)

This is a lithograph about NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, or MMS. Learners will cut out and assemble a colorful 3D model of an MMS spacecraft. Web links, additional facts, and QR codes are included for audiences to access more information.

This is an activity about Earth's magnetic field. Learners will construct a soda bottle magnetometer, collect data, and analyze the results to detect magnetic storm events. Ideally, learners should collect data for at least a month. If several...(View More) months are available for data collection, this is ideal. This is the first activity as part of the iMAGiNETICspace: Where Imagination, Magnetism, and Space Collide educator's guide. Instructions for downloading the iBook educator's guide and the associated Transmedia book student guide are available at the resource link.(View Less)

This paper model shows the orbit of Comet ISON (late 2013) with respect to the innermost planets of the solar system. After reading background information about comets - how they form and where they come from - students cut out and tape together the...(View More) pieces of the model provided to show its orbital pathway (a single page of parts that can be assembled using just scissors and adhesive). Links are provided to related classroom activities and additional resources.(View Less)

This is a lesson about the solar wind, Earth's magnetosphere, and the Moon. Participants will work in groups of two or three to build a model of the Sun-Earth-Moon system. They will use the model to demonstrate that the Earth is protected from...(View More) particles streaming out of the Sun, called the solar wind, by a magnetic shield called the magnetosphere, and that the Moon is periodically protected from these particles as it moves in its orbit around the Earth. Participants will also learn that the NASA ARTEMIS mission is a pair of satellites orbiting the Moon that measure the intensity of solar particles streaming from the Sun.(View Less)